'You gotta hate it.

You gotta hate it

You swore you would hate it.'

'But-' Danielle thought to herself. 'It's just so cute!'

She was staring at the pottery again. Sure, there was a murder investigation going on, but these teapots were cute. Just look how shiny they were! Well how shiny two of them were, but that was nice!

Behind her, Sherlock and John were speaking with Andy again. Well speaking was always a generous term for whatever Sherlock did.

"Two men who travelled back from China were murdered, and their killer left them messages in the Hangzhou numerals." Sherlock scolded Andy.

Scolded. That was a better term than 'spoke with'. Yeah.

Danielle was still looking at a pot. If she couldn't muster the effort to hate the museum on principle, then she'd hate the conversation.

"Soo Lin Yao's in danger." John explained to Andy in a more considering tone than Sherlock had used. "Now, that cipher– it was just the same pattern as the others. He means to kill her as well."

"Look, I've tried everywhere." Andy explained in an exhausted plea. "Um, friends, colleagues. I-I don't know where she's gone. I mean, she could be a thousand miles away."

Sherlock was about to open his mouth to speak. He spotted Danielle though, standing by the teapots. He walked up to her side.

"What are you looking at?" John asked them both.

"The teapots." Danielle answered. She beamed at John in delight. "They're so cute! I swear, even cuter than yesterday!" She wrote that off from her own exhaustion from the night before making her delirious, where everything was 100% better or 100% worse. That made sense.

"Th-the pots were her obsession." Andy admitted. He walked closer towards them. Sherlock was still had laser focus on the teapots. "Um, they need urgent work. If-if they dry out, then the clay can start to crumble. Apparently you have to just keep making tea in them."

"Yesterday, only one of those pots was shining." Sherlock pointed to the second teapot. Danielle gawked in understanding. "Now there are two."

==NKMHLY==

That night, they laid in wait for Soo Lin to return. Sherlock had waited by the teapots in the archives, John and Danielle waited by the lights. At Sherlock's cue, they flipped the lights back on.

The four of them were sitting around a table. Soo Lin was looking down at her teapot.

"You saw the cipher. Then you know he is coming for me." Soo Lin reminded the group.

"You've been clever to avoid him so far." Sherlock noted.

"I had to finish- to finish this work." Soo Lin looked back down to the teapot, staring at it as if her entire life was staked on its continued existence. "It's only a matter of time. I know he will find me."

"Who is he?" Sherlock pressed. "Have you met him before?"

"When I was a girl, living back in China. I recognize his...'signature.'" Soo Lin answered.

"The cipher." Sherlock reasoned.

"Only he would do this. Zhi Zhu." Soo Lin revealed.

"Zhi Zhu?" John repeated.

"I don't get it." Danielle admitted, confused.

"The Spider." Sherlock translated, to the relief of his friends. It didn't mean Danielle suddenly understood everything- what did a spider have to do with anything?

Soo Lin lifted up her foot. She took off her shoe, showing off her tattoo. It was a black lotus flower inside a circle. Soo Lin looked up to a nonchalant Sherlock. "You know this mark?"

"Yes. It's the mark of a Tong." He supplied, again, to his hopelessly adrift colleagues.

"Hmm?"

"Still don't get it." Danielle whispered.

"Ancient crime syndicate based in China." Sherlock clarified.

"Every foot soldier bears the mark; everyone who hauls for them." Soo Lin confirmed.

"'Hauls'?" John noted. His eyes widened. "Y-you mean you were a smuggler?"

"What?" Danielle's jaw dropped. She turned to Soo Lin, seeing her silent agreement. "Wha- Why?"

"I was fifteen." Soo Lin admitted, shamefully looking down as she put her shoe back on. "My parents were dead. I had no livelihood; no way of surviving day to day except to work for the bosses."

"I'm sorry." Danielle apologized, now seeing why her outburst had been so rude.

"Who are they?" Sherlock insisted.

"They are called the Black Lotus." Soo Lin answered. "By the time I was sixteen, I was taking thousands of pounds' worth of drugs across the border into Hong Kong. But I managed to leave that life behind me. I came to England." She let out a small fond smile. "They gave me a job here. Everything was good; a new life."

"Then he came looking for you." Sherlock reasoned.

"Yes." Soo Lin answered. Her lips trembled as she went on. "I had hoped after five years maybe they would have forgotten me, but they never really let you leave. A small community like ours– they are never very far away." She wiped a tear from her cheek. "He came to my flat. He asked me to help him to track down something that was stolen."

"And you've no idea what it was?" John asked.

"I refused to help." Soo Lin replied.

"You knew him?" Danielle suspected. "Back in China. You sounded fond of him. Like...like he was close."

Soo Lin nodded. "Oh yes. He's my brother."

"Ooh." Danielle replied in sympathy. "That's rough." Danielle could scarcely imagine it- her own brother trying to kill her.

Maybe the incident over Nathalie made Paul snap.

Maybe Felix would go nuts over her interference. He'd always been fiercely independent, like Danielle herself.

Was it troubling that Danielle could easily imagine either of her brothers trying to kill her?

Meanwhile, Soo Lin was giving away her tragic backstory. "Two orphans. We had no choice. We could work for the Black Lotus, or starve on the streets like beggars. My brother has become their puppet, in the power of the one they call Shan– the Black Lotus general. I turned my brother away. He said I had betrayed him. Next day I came to work and the cipher was waiting."

Sherlock pulled out the photos from his coat pockets. He showed them to Soo Lin. "Can you decipher these?"

She pointed at the painted cyphers. "These are numbers."

"Yes, I know." Sherlock replied.

"Here: the line across the man's eyes- it's the Chinese number one."

"And this one is fifteen. But what's the code?" Sherlock insisted.

"All the smugglers know it. It's based upon a book-" Soo Lin was cut off by all the lights in the museum going dark.

Danielle tensed. "...the museum doesn't have them on a timer, I'm guessing?"

"He's here." Soo Lin confirmed. "Zhi Zhu. He has found me."

Danielle squeaked.

Sherlock raced out from the room. John tried to hold him back. It was a futile effort. Still, appreciated.

With Sherlock gone, John stepped up. He turned to the two terrified women. He grabbed their hands.

"Come here." John dragged them off, hiding them behind the bigger furniture in the room. It would do good to hide the two of them. John would need somewhere else. With any luck, it would be a better position for defense. "Get in. Get in! Danielle, you sit with her."

Danielle nodded. She slid in beside Soo Lin. Both women were shaking.

Everything was relatively fine until the gunshots started. Danielle squeaked, curling up in their hiding place.

John turned to them.

"Don't you say it." Danielle warned.

"Danielle-"

"John I will kill you. Don't you dare." Danielle threatened.

"I have to go and help." John told her. Danielle knew she'd give in- that Sherlock was an idiot who needed minding sometimes. "Bolt the door after me. Danielle, don't let them in."

Danielle nodded. He'd gone Captain Watson on them. She was fine with that- she was terrified!

He left.

Danielle reaches back, taking Soo Lin's hand. She squeezed it tight.

"We'll be fine." Danielle promised, nodding her head. If she was lucky, she'd be convinced too. "They'll Keep us safe. They've done it before. We'll be fine."

Soo Lin offered no such reassurances.

To her, she was already dead.

==NKMHLY==

The Spider got in.

Danielle had locked the door, stayed exactly where John told them to go. But he got in.

She stayed hidden. She squeezed Soo Lin's hand so tight her fingers went white.

Soo Lin loosened her hold.

Danielle went with it. She guessed she'd been holding too tight- anyone would let go then. Danielle curled up her knees, hugging them.

Gunfire was still going off in the distance. Danielle shuddered at the sounds. She buried her face into her knees to brace herself.

With her mini-breakdown done, she turned to her fellow hiding partner. The gunfire had slowed down.

"Any idea how-" Soo Lin wasn't there. Danielle panicked. "Soo Lin?" Danielle whispered out.

She peeled out from their hiding spot. Soo Lin was standing in the middle of the room, completely exposed.

Danielle nearly screamed when she saw the figure approaching Soo Lin from behind. Danielle cowered in her hiding space, curled up in a ball.

She tried to tune them out.

She tried to tune out Soo Lin speaking with her brother.

The gun went off.

Danielle pressed her palm over mouth. She kept back her sobs. Silent trails came down off her cheeks, soaking her palm.

But she stayed hidden.

==NKMHLY==

Someone was knocking on the door.

Danielle swallowed down a shriek. She peeled out, unable to see the shape through the door. She looked around the room- catching sight of Soo Lin.

What was left, anyway.

"Danielle! Soo Lin!" John's voice called out from the other side of the door.

Danielle stumbled that way. She couldn't look away from Soo Lin.

Still, through all of the stumbling in the dark, Danielle made it to the door.

The door unlocked.

John rushed inside. His first sight was Soo Lin, laying dead on the table with a hole in her chest and an origami flower in her hand.

"Danielle." John suddenly realized. "Danielle!"

"I'm here." She whispered from the shadows.

Danielle walked out. Her face was pale. Her breathing clearly rapid, as she stared at the corpse of Soo Lin.

"Danielle." John went to her side. She took hold of his offered hand. "Danielle are you alright?"

"I locked the door." Danielle informed him, panicking over what had gone wrong. "I did what you said- I tried, John, but he just-"

John held Danielle's arm. "Come here, come here." He pulled Danielle close.

Danielle went into the hug, panicking still. She rambled apologies and pleas over his shoulder.

Sherlock found them like that. He said nothing, just scoffed in disappointment at a lead lost. They'd been so close to finding out the cypher. Pity.

==NKMHLY==

AN: Sorry for the lateness. This chapter has been fighting me for ages.

Thanks to Dorea D'Arke, readerlover16, Ghostisreading, Alexcupcake, Zorua1, Ruyuz, Na'vi knower, and Terrixghost hunt1353 for favoriting

Thanks to Random2Friends, Cece12, readerlover16, Ghostisreading, Bambora, rebeckaeo, Alexcupcake, Zorua1, and Terrixghost hunt1353 for following